mac the ripper can only remove the protection from the original dvd, it can not rip dvd to mp4 avi and other videos to ipod iphone etc.. below is the guide:
http://www.iskysoft.com/article/mac-the-ripper.html#118

MTR3 will be distributed freely pending development completion. It should be noted, however, that MTR3 has been in Private Beta phase since April 30th 2006, leading some to speculate that the developer's intentions are to keep it in Private Beta phase indefinitely, as this allows him to collect fees without having to call his software shareware.

"The comment "This perpetual "closed beta" is starting to smell funny." is both unfair and unkind. The 1 (one) time donation for R&D does not make MTR 3.x beta less free than the 2.6.6 version."

This makes no sense, if you MUST make a donation, it is NOT free, so it most certainly DOES make it less free. And it will be a cold day in hell when I PAY to beta test anything, which is why I use a Mac running OS X and not a PC running Windows. IF they complete MTR 3 and release it and the new version is worth a whit and they want money for it THEN, then at THAT time, I will consider buying it. But not now. And there is NO difference between a required donation and a selling price.

@fairuse09 : I'm confused. How can you say that requiring a "donation" for access to a program (the 3.0 beta) doesn't make it less free than freeware (the 2.6.6 release)? Free is free. "Required donation" is not. This seems pretty clear cut to me, but maybe there's some subtlety that I'm missing...

As for the accusation that I'm being unfair, let's examine the facts. Going from 1.5.6 to 2.0 (a complete rewrite, they say) took 2 months. Going from 2.2.6 to 3.0 has taken over 2 years. Doesn't that seem a little bit odd? Even if you start the clock at Apr. 30, 2006 (the date the beta was announced, according to the sidebar of their website) you're still talking about well over a year in beta! But hey, who can blame the developers? The minute they release 3.0 their donation income vanishes! Sounds like a pretty strong counter-incentive to me.

But hey, I'd love to be proven wrong! It's pretty easy, just show me the release. I'll gladly retract all of the above if 3.0 is released in the near future. But I'm sure not going to hold my breath.

The comment "This perpetual "closed beta" is starting to smell funny." is both unfair and unkind. The 1 (one) time donation for R&D does not make MTR 3.x beta less free than the 2.6.6 version. The work going into handling the new methods that keep someone from backing up their disk is enough to justify making r3.x very pricey. As far as it is known -- MTR 3.x when public is and will be free. - I am a tester so I will advise: 3.0r14 is - incomplete

MTR is a very useful, well-written app. However, the "freeware" label is deceptive. You can download a 2 year old version for free, while the latest version is in "closed beta." You can get in on the beta by paying. That would be fine if there was an end in sight for the beta, but it's lasted for ages now.

If the authors want to write commercial software and make money selling it then fine, so be it, but just call it commercial software. This perpetual "closed beta" is starting to smell funny.

@talguy : check out dvd2onex (www.dvd2one.com) for compression--it is a great solution for compressing movies to fit a single DVD-R, or to even take the movie only out of a full feature rip. also makes it easy to remove other audio tracks to help reduce the size.